


Wrong Place, Wrong Time

by eichart



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 19:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eichart/pseuds/eichart
Summary: Jake McCabe accidentally notices that something might be up with Sam and Jack. He’s not sure he wants to know what. (In which Jake is oblivious about some things and Sam and Jack are not).





	Wrong Place, Wrong Time

**Author's Note:**

> It's like a half hour late, but a birthday present for my awesome friend Olivia!!!
> 
> This is kind of a lighthearted Outside POV fic that might come a bit too close to crack, but I hope you enjoy and maybe laugh.

 

The first time Jake McCabe is cued into anything really  _ weird _ about Jack and Sam, it’s by complete accident. It’s in the depths of winter, and he’s seriously concerned about the boys’ intake of remotely healthy foods, so he comes over with a hearty stew in tow and he’s greeted almost too enthusiastically. And yeah guys, his homemade stew from his grandmother’s recipe is gunna be way better than anything from a  _ can _ . Or a box. Or a freezer. He tries not to look too smug as they dig in.

He actually kind of likes eating dinner with them, even if he always comes over under the pretenses of another homemade culinary  _ delight _ and rolls his eyes at their enthusiasm for his cooking and reuses his chirps about Sam not knowing how to use the stove too much.

But dinner is not exactly where things start going off.

He’s actually just looking for the bathroom when he starts noticing  _ things _ . He’s honest to god looking for the bathroom because he has to piss and not because he’s trying to snoop around the rookies-but-not-really-rookies’ personal space. He’s a good teammate. He doesn’t do that type of stuff. Not without good cause, anyway.

But there are doors that aren’t quite closed all the way, and he has to walk past all of them on his quest for the porcelain throne because the directions he was given weren’t the most specific –maybe a little mumbled around quality beef from Dashes and carrots he chopped up himself. So it’s really  _ not _ his fault that he sees.

He knows the place is a two-bedroom house, so he doesn’t think much of it when he catches a glimpse into the first bedroom –sees the bed impeccably made, relatively no mess or evidence of being lived in save for the unwrapped Bauer merch strewn in one of the corners and the plethora of Bills hats on the dresser. Which yeah, he thinks maybe is a little weird because Matt’s told him how Jack kept his room a little messy but didn’t let it spill out into the rest of the house. But he sees and just thinks that maybe Sam’s a little stricter about that sort of thing, even though Sam doesn’t  _ seem _ like the kind that cares about what happens in personal bedrooms.

Jake isn’t either, really. One hundred percent does not care what happens behind closed doors.

Still, he also can’t help but notice the second bedroom and think that it’s a little  _ weird _ . Because just from the sliver he sees through the cracked door it looks so heavily lived in: messy sheets and the comforter crumpled at the foot of the bed, empty water bottles, and unfolded clothing. It falls much more into the mental image he had of a place held down by a couple of young twenty-something year olds who still think cereal is a suitable dinner.

But there’s something else besides the whole lived in factor that has him hesitating by the second bedroom instead of continuing towards where he assumes the bathroom is. He’s not one to jump to conclusions, but Jake knows a thing or two from his college days, and he  _ knows _ what a bed looks like when two people sleep in it. Curiosity pushes at him now, well awakened, and who is he to deny it. He looks over his shoulder to make sure Sam and Jack aren’t going to materialize in the hallway and nudges the door open a little wider.

This totally falls under looking out for the little guys on the team, right?

Even if it’s not, he’s not so straight-laced that he’s beyond a little snooping, and he steps over the threshold of the bedroom.

It’s not a chaos of mess, but it’s certainly got that lived in quality that the other bedroom seemed to lack. Like it hadn’t been used for anything besides storage for a few months. He turns in a slow circle, making a series of hasty observations, all of which only seem to prove his original hypothesis: Jack and Sam were definitely sharing one bedroom. Two nightstands, two phone chargers curling lazily onto the floor, different brands of protein bars, the red Canadian WC sweatshirt thrown onto one of the pillows and the BU one crumpled on the floor –it doesn’t exactly  _ disprove _ what he was thinking.

Jake doesn’t know what he expected, not this surely, but for some reason he’s not exactly  _ surprised _ either. So he stands in silence, hand reaching for his phone, maybe to take some pictures, maybe to get a second opinion because he’s  _ not _ jumping to conclusions here.

“Find the bathroom, Caber?” Jack’s voice carries from the kitchen, and Jake startles, phone dropping back into his pocket. He quickly retreats back to the hall from his snooping adventure, a guilty look on his face even though there’s no one around to see it.

“Yeah.” He yells back, pulling the bedroom door hastily shut.

…

After that, Jake can’t stop looking and seeing things where he didn’t before. And he thinks he’s slowly driving himself insane because he automatically starts seeing it everywhere: at practice, on the bus, splashed across his Snapchat and in the team group chat. Everywhere Jack goes it seems like Sam more than willingly follows; when Sam laughs Jack gets this dopey sort of look on his face like he’s seen the most beautiful thing in his life; they share blankets on the bus, Jake’s seen them fall asleep on each other’s shoulders multiple times, and caught glimpses of Jack idly playing with Sam’s hair. And like, he  _ knows _ that teammates aren’t exactly the most cognizant of personal space, but there’s just some things that can’t be explained away with an age old fact.

Like on some snowy morning when he slams into the locker room, dead tired and wearing a sweatshirt he’s pretty sure he stole from Rasmus a month ago at Ryan’s cookout (Look, Rasmus took his NDTP one –fair’s, fair), and his eyes snap right to them. That’s becoming a trend, them somehow being the  _ first _ thing he notices.

He  _ notices _ Sam standing in front of Jack’s stall, talking too quietly for Jake to hear;  _ notices _ the fact that Jack has to crane his head upward to meet his eyes, but doesn’t look the vaguest bit perturbed by it; his posture is open, relaxed, a smile Jake can only describe as excessively  _ fond _ fixed on his face. And Jake’s still staring with coffee in one hand and a half-eaten bagel in the other when Jack reached forward to wrap his fingers around Sam’s wrist—

Jake looks away, unsettled like he just witnessed something extremely private.

Maybe he is really just reading way too much into this.

He takes a long drought of coffee to snap him out of it and revels in the bitter aftertaste.

…

“Do Eich and Reino seem really close to you?” He deigns to ask Marcus later, still a bit winded from the last drill but determined to make sure he’s not slowly going insane. ‘Course though, he’s not really looking at him though, more over Marcus’ shoulder to where the duo is chatting and Jack is idly bouncing pucks of Sam’s skate. Perfectly normal bros hanging out at practice.

Marcus sets down his water bottle and looks at him weird. “Well yeah. They’re  _ linemates _ .” He says like that explains everything. Which it doesn’t because Evander is their linemate too and he doesn’t see him do anything overly  _ weird.  _ And  _ he’s _ pairs with Rasmus and there’s nothing weird there.

Well. Besides— that’s not the point.

“No, but you know— _ really _ close.” Jake tries to elaborate.

“Well, they’re roommates too—that’s good right? Isn’t that what management wants?”

And like, Marcus has a point and all, management must be fuckin ecstatic with all the time they spend together –public affairs too. Fans love that kind of shit. But.  _ Still _ .

“—Yeah.” Jake surrenders finally, because he can’t quite put what he means into actual words. What would he say anyway?  _ Yeah, I think Jack and Sam are more than friends and sleeping with each other? _ That sounds stupid even in his head, and he hasn’t remotely got any proof. He also doesn’t want Marcus to get the wrong impression and all, straight-laced NHL and stuff, so he lets the subject drop. Verbally anyway.

He’s still looking carefully at them after Marcus skates away –watches Jack pass his water bottle to Sam, and still, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before with other players ( _ he’s _ done it multiple times after all), but there’s  _ something _ he just can’t ignore.

Maybe he just needs another opinion.

Speaking of—

“Hey Risto.” He calls, skating over. “Is there something up with Sam and Jack?” Rasmus just kind of looks at him like he can’t even see what’s right in front of him, and that’s an expression that needs approximately zero translation from Finnish. So Jake’ll take that as a yes. “Whoa, okay. No need to give me that look, man.”

“You’re blind.” says Rasmus.

Jake frowns at that, slightly miffed, but Rasmus offers no further explanation, just stares stonily across the ice. He shuffles his skates against the ice as he waits for their turn at drill, hating that the silence seems tenuous even though they’re supposed to be resting. “You want to get dinner later?” He blurts without thinking –doesn’t exactly regret it after either, though.

“Sure.” Does Rasmus look pleased? He’s off in a spray of ice before Jake can fully process the expression.

He grins nonetheless. 

Far across the rink Jack’s laugh echoes against Plexiglas as he laughs at something Sam says.

…

He buries his face in his towel and tries his best not to scream. It’s one of the early matinee games and to put it lightly, it didn’t go well. He’s really just in need of a good distraction right about now. Maybe they all are. It’s not fun being murdered on home ice. 

“Hey Caber, make sure they eat something decent, okay?” Gio catches him on his way out, and Jake hates how he knows exactly who the captain’s talking about –and maybe normally Jake would have something to say about that, something witty and faintly infuriating. But he’s not really feeling either at the moment, and Gio looks just as tired and resigned as he does, and maybe he was planning on doing that anyway.

“I’m bringing dinner over later.” He tells the boys as he leaves the dressing room and doesn’t  _ really  _ notice the way Sam seems to want to fall asleep on Jack’s shoulder. He doesn’t even ask if they even want dinner because they totally  _ love _ his cooking, and Gio’s right, they need something more than Chinese takeout or whatever after a game like that.

And, yeah, maybe he just wants to stress cook something to forget about all this.

He gives a ten-minute text warning before he crosses the street with a small feast in tow. He doesn’t knock on the door either because Jake’s done this too many times to count now, just lets himself in with the key under the mate. At this rate, maybe he should just get himself his own key for their house too.

“Hey!” He calls down the hallway, kicks off his shoes at the door because he’s not some animal. “Hey, Eichs! Reino! Dinner time!”

Sock-clad feet are quiet on the hardwood as he enters the living room, large casserole still in hand. It almost ends up on the carpet though because he almost drops it. “Hey, wak—oh.”

He blinks, greeting dying on his tongue as he stares and works very hard on not assuming things.

He’d maybe expected to find him napping, but certainly not that this. He blinks, tries not to breathe too loudly and wake them even though they’re both clearly stuck in deep slumber –his entrance hadn’t exactly been stealthy.

Jack’s on his back, sprawled the length of the couch, mess of curls just visible above an arm rest. And from the right angle it looks perfect normal. Until Jake moves three steps forward and seems Sam practically half sprawled across Jack’s body, half wedged against the back cushions, fingers curled against Jack’s shirt and a blanket half tangled around both their legs. They’re all but plastered together against the gray upholstery. He wonders how they’re even comfortable like that –the couch looks much too small for the both of them.

And maybe it’s like Jake’s standing in that bedroom again, because once he gets over the initial sight, he finds himself quite  _ unsurprised _ . Because really, this is just another piece of the puzzle clicking neatly into place.

He also can’t help but think that it’s  _ sweet  _ the way Jack’s hand slots gently over Sam’s back, the way his head tilts just  _ so _ that his chin is rushing Sam’s hair. They seem peaceful like this even if Jack’s definitely going to wake up with a cramp in his neck, and Jake very much does not want to be intruding or staring at them like some creepy stalker as they sleep.

Though, at the same time, he totally wants a picture for future chirping reasons. When he finally figures out what all this means.

But he still texts Marcus later because somehow, he’s the one he trusts the most with this. ‘ _ Did u kno abt this?’ _ he sends with the photo attached.

He doesn’t get a response until nearly three hours later, and all it says is a cryptic  _ ‘kinda.’ _

…

Jake is awakened at some truly ungodly hour by his phone vibrating somewhere by his ear. He groans and fumbles around for his phone lost somewhere in his sheets, fishing it out from under his pillow and squinting at the screen to piece together the blurry letters before he answers.

Rasmus? Weird.

“Risto?”

“Practice moved back two hours. For the snow.” says Rasmus on the other end. “Call Eichs and Reino?”

Jake sighs. Oh right. The phone call tree. He pretends he doesn’t feel strangely relieved and disappointed at the subject of the call. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks. I got it, man.”

Rasmus hangs up right after, and he’s  _ not _ disappointed by that either.

He scrolls through his contacts instead and dials Jack, staring at the ceiling and thinking about going back to sleep while the phone rings. Predictably, it does so for nearly a minute before there’s any response.

“—hello?”

“Hey, Eichs. Dunno if you’ve seen the white bullshit outside but practice’s been—“

“Oh fuck—“

Jake almost doesn’t hear it, but trails off all the same when he does. He’s still struggling with his own newly awakened consciousness, so it takes a second, but after a moment it clicks—“Wait,  _ Sam? _ ”

There’s no answer right away, just what sounds to be rustling and murmuring that sounds suspiciously like  _ ‘Jack, wake up.’ _ There’s another long moment, followed by a sigh before, “Uh –hey Jake.”

Yeah, that’s  _ definitely  _ Sam and Jake is  _ not  _ awake enough for this at all. So he gives himself one second to collect himself and forges on. “Yeah, um, practice at eleven now. Let Jack know.”

“Oh great. Yeah, ‘course I will. Than—“

“Samson—who’re you talkin’ to?”

As if this can’t get any more surreal.

Jake can hear Jack Eichel’s sleep roughened voice crystal clear over his phone, and all his mind is doing is thinking about the unused bedroom he saw weeks ago and now he might be mildly freaking out.

“It’s Caber. Two hour delay on practice. Go back to sleep.” comes Sam’s voice faintly over the phone.

“’Kay, Sammy.”

“ _ Don’t call me that. _ ”

“L--”

“Um ---yeah, I’ll see you at practice. Bye.” He manages to get out before he hears anything else, and promptly hangs up.

...

“He answered Jack’s  _ phone _ . Jack was  _ there _ . He told Jack to go back to sleep.” Jake tells Marcus a minutes later when he calls with the news of delayed practice. “Why was –I mean –what the  _ fuck? _ ”

“Do you have a problem with it if it is?”

“What? No. Why would I? Of course not. I just—“

“Then stop worrying about it, Jake. Go back to  _ sleep _ .” 

Yeah, safe too say he was far too rattled now to ‘go back to sleep.’

…

He’s locked out of his house. Honest to god  _ locked out  _ of his fucking house because he forgot his keys on the counter like a fucking  _ loser _ and his spare key is buried in well-frozen dirt under a foot of snow.

Lucky for him Jack and Sam live right across the street, so he tromps over and rings their doorbell. It’s late, but they’re barely not-teenagers and they’re totally still awake just playing NHL 15 or something that’s not sleeping. He’s right, of course, just maybe he should have given more thought to all the things that fall under the category of  _ ‘not sleeping’ _ especially given all his observations as of late.

“Uh –oh hey, Caber.” Sam says, door swinging open as he pulls a shirt down over his chest and subtly tries to smooth hair back into place.

He probably should have backed out right then and there, but he was almost already talking before the door was open. “Hey, sorry to bother but I locked myself out and the smith’s not supposed to be here for another few hours with this snow, you mind if I…?” He waves vaguely before sticking his cold hand back into his pocket.

There’s a clatter of noise behind Sam before he can answer, a grunt and some muffled swearing followed by, “Samson, c’mon, who—“

“It’s Caber.” Sam yells back, surprisingly quick, cutting off whatever Jack was going to say. “He got locked out.” He adds as Jack materializes from the darkness of the hallway a moment later, shirtless and flushed.

“Oh, hey, Caber.” says Jack.

Jake’s starting to think that maybe he should have just stat in his car until the locksmith battled his way through poorly plowed Buffalo roads. He may have drained his car battery and froze to death, but at least he’d still be significantly less uncomfortable than he is right now. “Uh—you know what. It’s fine.” he begins to say, backing towards the door. “Locksmith shouldn’t be long. I’ll just—sorry for –uh—bothering.”

Jack looks like he’s about to agree, and Jake stares at some point over Sam’s shoulder and pointedly tries not to notice the way Jack’s looking at Sam. Apparently though, Sam’s too nice for his own good, though, and looks positively horrified at the prospect of leaving him to freeze a slow death in his car. “Oh, ‘s all right.” He says, and Jake hopes he doesn’t look at horrified as he feels.

“—Yeah.” says Jack with notable less enthusiasm. “Can’t let you freeze to death. Already low on dmen, right?”

And so Jake kicks off his boots and follows them into the kitchen.

At least Jake finally finds a shirt, plucking a sweatshirt off the couch. Jake is relieved until Jack turns to grab juice from the fridge and he’s treated to  _ ’23 Reinhart’ _ glaring out at him in the bold gold of the Sabres across Jack’s back.

And it’s not like he has a  _ problem _ if this is going down like he thinks it is. He just, doesn’t want to be here when it does. Or be the one interrupting ---- _ whatever’s _ going down here.

…

**[SMS to Riiiiiistooo: 1:15 am]**

_ ugh i just got back in my house from eichs and reinos _

**[SMS to Riiiiiistooo: 1:20 am]**

_ Theyre driving me crazy _

**[SMS to Riiiiiistooo: 1:25 am]**

_ I cant b the only one who sees this _

**[SMS to Riiiiiistooo: 1:29 am]**

_ Im not right???? _

**[SMS from Riiiiiistooo: 1:45 am]**

_ Go to sleep jake _

**[SMS from Riiiiiistooo: 1:45 am]**

_ You are not crazy _

**[SMS from Riiiiiistooo: 1:49 am]**

_ Just blind _

…

“All right, we all here?”

“Nah, nah –we still missing Eichs and Reino.”

“ _ Typical.” _

Jake moves to settle his headphones over his ears as annoyed rumblings colored with amusement ripple up and down the bus, but before he can blast his music—

“Hey, Caber, go up and get them.” says Gio –more like  _ commands, _ giving him that captainy  _ look _ that reminds him of being ten and his mom telling him to get downstairs and set the table. So yeah, Jake gets up from his comfy seat, fuzzy blanket falling from his lap. He stoops to pick it up and drags it after him off the bus earning a good chirp or two (‘Can’t go far without your blankie, can ya, Caber?’). he squashes the desire to gives Evander the finger and slinks off towards the locker room. If he’s got to go, he might as well be  _ comfy. _

Maybe he’s being a little childish, but Jake just really want to be back to the hotel now and finally crash for a solid ten hours, not stomping the length of a freezing arena with his blanket to fetch not-rookie-rookies who are somewhat his responsibility because he lives across the street from them.

When he finally bursts into the dressing room, albeit dramatically, he’s not feeling the  _ most _ charitable and launches straight into his frustrated rant. “Will you two get your  _ fucking _ asses out there al—“ Course it’s then that Jake’s eyes finally catch up with his mouth and brain, and he lapses from angry rant into a sort of shocked silence.

Which, looking back, doesn’t make sense because he one hundred percent should have predicted this. The lateness, paired with the plethora or observation he has neatly filed away, and the assumptions he’s tried not to make but made anyway –there’s a limited number of things you’re doing when you’re late for the team bus after a game. But  _ guessing  _ is no match for  _ seeing _ , and it’s not every day he walks into his teammates making out in a different team’s dressing room. “Oh my g—“

He blinks in silence. He looks to where Sam turned and is rustling through his bag, to where Jack is just  _ standing _ attempting to look nonchalant but actually looking slightly frazzled, with face too flushed and lips too red.

Oh god. All this suspicion, and he never stopped to think what would happen should he find out he was  _ right _ . 

“Oh fuck.” He finally says eloquently.

“Uh –look, Jake, it’s—“ begins Jack as Sam avoids both their gaze. Jack’s got a sort of terrified glint in his eye, but determination lining his shoulders and Jake doesn’t doubt that if he so much as moves the wrong way he’s a goner. It’s almost contradictory to how Jack’s inching closer to Sam too until they’re bumping shoulders. “It’s not – _ not— _ what it looks like but—“

And no. It’s not like that. He’s not-- angry or disgusted or anything like that. Just--

“I fucking  _ knew _ it.” interrupts Jake. “I  _ knew _ Marcus was a horrible fucking liar.” That just brings them to blink at him owlishly in silence, and okay, maybe that wasn’t the best way of going about this.

Then Jack’s shoulders relax a fraction as he draws up a face, vaguely horrified. “ _ That _ obvious, huh?”

“Sam  _ did _ answer you phone at 5:30 am and you interrupted him still half asleep.”

“Our  _ heating _ broke that night.”

“Oh and you really expect me to believe  _ that’s _ the reason you were sharing a bed?  _ Right. _ ”

“Well—“ says Sam, and Jack laughs.

“Just—“ Jake sighs and pulls his blanket back over his shoulders. “I don’t care about –whatever this is you’ve got. Just –be happy, take care of each other, continue to eat the dinner I bring over to you. And let’s  _ go _ before Gio sends someone else after all of us.”

“Dinner won’t be a problem.” says Sam. And Jake’s looking at both of them looking at each other like they’ve found something something special. And it’s ---pleasing. God, Jake’s so soft for his stupid teammates.

“Right.” says Jack, grabbing his bag and Sam’s hand. And that’s sweet too, really. Jake still rolls his eyes though, scans the dressing room for any lost items and goes to follow them out.

They pause right before exiting, however, almost eerily in sync as they turn to look back at him. “You know—“ says Sam, “With us being—well, just know that. I –uh—I don’t think anyone would have an issue if –you know—“ He waves a vague hand.

Jake does not ‘ _ you know.’ _

Jack, ever the blunt one butts helpfully in. “Jake, he means Risto.”

“Wait,  _ what?” _

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao so. This is probably not as well written as it could be, but I love it anyway. Basically no research was done for this, so please don't bash me for that. Anyhow! Thanks for reading and if you liked drop me a kudo or comment. As always, catch me on tumblr over [here](http://eichhart.tumblr.com)!


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